Prey
by subversivegrrl
Summary: Daryl finally makes a move, but after so many months of emotional foreplay, Carol's freaking out a bit, and everyone else gets hit by the fallout. Caryl two-shot.
1. Hunted

Carol rose from where she knelt amid the rows of beans and stretched, pressing her hands to the small of her back and flexing backward, grimacing slightly as her spine popped and cracked from the awkward position she'd been holding. Across the prison grounds, a movement caught her eye - in the early morning sun, Daryl Dixon strode toward the guard tower, barefoot, boots in hand. His hair was dripping, and his sleeveless shirt swung open over his flat stomach, displaying how his unbelted cargo pants hung low over his hipbones. He moved with unconscious grace, like a big hunting cat. A thought shot unbidden across Carol's mind: _My God. He is beautiful._ A wave of something hot and almost painful washed across her lower belly.

As Daryl approached the base of the tower, he paused and raised his head, turning it slightly from side to side as though he were scanning for something. Carol could swear she could see his nostrils flare, and thought, _He's hunting... me_. As his eyes began to turn her way, some primal alarm went off in her gut and she found herself crouching behind the bean trellises. _Carol Ann Peletier!_, she thought. _What on __earth__ has gotten into you? That's just Daryl!_ She prayed he hadn't seen her dive for cover, or if he had, that he wouldn't come looking: how could she ever explain why she was hiding in the garden?

The trouble was, she would have to stand up eventually. Maybe by now he was up in the tower and he wouldn't notice. _Right, Carol. Because he's __so__ unobservant._ The sheer ludicrousness of the scene made her giggle softly, and then again, and if she wasn't careful she would get a giggle-fit; wouldn't that be just fine! She raised her head a few inches, trying to see between the plants. Then she heard a tiny rustle in the weeds at the garden's edge. "Caught you lookin'," he rumbled, right behind her.

She jumped to her feet and spun to face him, her cheeks stained scarlet in embarrassment. "Want to tell me what you're doin' sneaking around in the veggies, Carol?" he teased. "Um. I was. Weeding," she said, blushing even harder, holding out the twist of grass she clasped in her fingers. _Smooth, Peletier_, she chided herself.

He tilted his head, half-closing one eye and raising the opposite brow (how _did_ he manage that, anyway?), and gave her a wry grin. Nodding toward the guard tower, he said, "come up and see me, why don't you? after you're done _weedin'_, that is." He chuckled softly to himself and shook his head before turning away.

_He must think I'm a complete idiot_, Carol thought. _I __am__ a complete idiot_. She watched him stroll away, again admiring the careless ease with which he moved. Daryl exhausted, injured, and on his last ounce of strength was still more graceful than most people on their best day. She took full advantage of the opportunity to observe him without his knowledge - except that, unless the man was completely oblivious, he had to know she was watching him go.

She would not go rushing after him, though. Whatever sass he was going to give her over her odd behavior would just have to wait until she was done with this chore. She went back to plucking unwelcome growth from between the rows, but she just couldn't find any enthusiasm for the task. The job needed to be done, and usually she found it a good time to do some thinking, but she had already been at it for two hours, and the sun was getting hotter, and by God she felt like she'd put in as much time as she cared to that morning. And it had _not a thing_ to do with an itch of curiosity about why a certain Mr. Dixon wanted her to come and visit him in the guard tower.

She dusted off the knees of her pants, threw the last few handfuls of weeds onto the compost pile, and headed off to the tower for what was probably a well-deserved round of razzing. Honestly, she couldn't imagine what had possessed her.

* * *

The door to the guard shack hung open, and out on the balcony she could hear the quiet _ksss, ksss_ of his knife against a whetstone. She hung back for a few moments, though, gazing out over the prison grounds and the fields beyond the fences. A few walkers stumbled through the high grass outside the outer fence, but overall it was about as quiet as it had been in months. She knew that made Daryl uneasy; he worried that all their defensive skills would rust if they didn't have to use them, and he kept them drilling on weapons more frequently than anyone else felt necessary. Lots of people told him to relax, that they had earned a respite after the Governor was routed out of Woodbury, but there was really no such thing as a Relaxed Daryl - although, compared to Highly Agitated Daryl, a Constantly Alert Daryl was a day at the beach.

Carol snorted to herself at the image, wondering, _and when will any of us ever see a day at the beach again? _

"What's so funny, miss?" He'd done it again - snuck up on her while she wasn't paying attention.

She wouldn't let him get to her this time, though. "Semantics," she said, tartly.

"Beg pardon?"

"Oh, nothing. Just one of those funny phrases that you don't even think about until… until the world comes to an end and it doesn't make any sense any more."

"Like…?"

"Like…," she thought carefully, "like, 'If I had a nickel for every time...', except no one gives a damn about nickels, or dimes, or dollars any more." It was the best example she could come up with on short notice, because she sure as hell didn't want to explain the earlier one.

"Deep thoughts for this early in the day, woman." He wasn't even giving her a hard time about the garden yet, and he was already making her cross.

"You might as well get on with it, Daryl Dixon. Make fun of me for skulking around in the garden like a skittery doe. Might as well call everyone else out here so they can hear it, too. Give everyone a laugh, lord knows we all could use it." She didn't know what had her so out of sorts, but suddenly she just wasn't in the mood for Mr. Dixon's idea of funny, and she turned toward the stairs, intending to leave his company this very instant.

His hand caught her wrist before she could even take a step.

"I could smell you, y'know."

Her heart thumped erratically. What was he talking about?

"That lavender soap you been using. It blew right up on me before I took ten steps outside... Think I could have tracked you for miles, just on that scent." She shivered. The thought of Daryl slipping silently through the woods, following her trail… made her belly flutter. Like being stalked by a mountain lion.

"I had to come find you." He was right in her ear, his breath ghosting over her neck, raising gooseflesh all over her arms, her shoulders… her nipples were as hard as little gumdrops. His hands came up to cup her waist, and he dropped his nose into the crook of her neck and inhaled deeply, like a drowning man gasping for air.

_What __was__ this?_ She pulled away from him, turning to look him in the face. He wore an uncertain expression, like he wasn't sure if she was going to slap him, call him a fool, or… Her eyes narrowed. It didn't seem like he was teasing any more, but this was… such very un-Daryl-like behavior.

As she hesitated, his face suddenly went closed, all his thoughts going back behind the shutters of his eyes. He turned back to the guard shack door, saying, "yeah, well, I'm sure you got things to do, and I gotta keep an eye on the treeline." And like that he was gone, and she knew that even if she stayed and tried to talk to him, they might as well be in different rooms.

Ah, the changing weather of Daryl Dixon - hot and cold, and no warning when a storm front was coming through.


	2. Stormy Weather

The week's forecast was for a Surly Daryl and a Prickly Carol. Cloudy, with a 75% chance of gale-force winds, and occasional volcanic eruptions. Everyone else ducked for cover.

* * *

_We were going along just fine the way we were. Why did he have to make things more complicated? _

* * *

"What in the _hell_ is up with him, anyway?" Rick was clearly exasperated, and Carol didn't have any answers. Daryl was in a rage, stomping around the yard like Godzilla and tearing some of the Woodbury people a new one over some supposed lapse of security discipline. She pressed her fingers against her temples and considered the advisability of just shooting the man.

* * *

_She felt his eyes on her every time she crossed the courtyard. She had to fight the urge to flee, but whether that was away from or toward him? she wasn't sure._

* * *

She thought she had been content with what they had. A comfortable camaraderie. Teasing and sort-of-flirting, and neither of them taking it too seriously. At least so she had thought. All she knew for sure was that she hated this, being out of sync with him.

_It's not like she'd never considered him in that way. She'd have to be stone cold not to see him, how he cared for her, and not at least think about wanting more - but, truth be told, who had the time now? Between keeping people fed and clothed, and trying to shore up their crumbling home, and organize work shifts, and head off problems between all of these people, most of them strangers… She definitely didn't have the time __or__ the energy to be doing this. And what kind of basis for a relationship could it be, when days at a time blurred by with no more contact than a glance, or a raised eyebrow, or a nod, at most a few words in passing? How were they supposed make anything good and lasting out of such bare bones? _

And now he wanted… whatever it was he wanted. To put his hands on her and smell her neck. _God in heaven._ But oh, she had liked it. Lord help her, she had loved the feeling of him so close to her, the way he pulled her in tight to him, the stubble on his face brushing her collarbone. Even now, the thought of his breath on her neck made her shiver.

* * *

"You're looking pretty rough this morning, if you don't mind me saying so." Michonne was her usual blunt self, but Carol couldn't find fault with her observation; she'd caught a glimpse of the circles under her eyes in the mirror as she washed up. She gratefully accepted the cup of coffee the other woman offered and sank wearily into the nearest chair.

The other thing she could count on Michonne to be was direct. "Look, Carol. You need to talk to him. With whatever's going on with the two of you, snapping at anyone who looks at either of you sideways, everyone's on edge. Not to mention that _he yelled at the kids._ They don't need that. None of us do, but them least of all. So do whatever it is you need to do, but figure it out. And soon."

* * *

If either of them had been less mule-headed, it might never have come to this.

* * *

Eventually it fell to Maggie and Glenn to lay the ambush. Maggie gave Carol some story about looking for a book she thought she'd seen on the library shelves, and Glenn asked Daryl to lend a hand moving some furniture. Their first clue came when Glenn slammed the door behind him. Maggie threaded a length of chain through the handle and slapped a padlock in place.

Glenn stepped up to yell through the narrow gap, keeping far enough back to prevent Daryl from trying to bounce the door off his forehead. "OK. It's three hours until dinner time. Maggie and Beth are taking care of that for tonight, Carol, so you don't have any chores you need to be getting to. For safety's sake, I'll be just down the hall in case there's some reason we need to let you out early. And before you ask, Daryl, 'because otherwise I'm going to kick your ass' does not count as a reason. When we come back to let you out, you better have sorted out whatever has you two acting like... "

"Jackasses," Maggie filled in, helpfully.

"Right," Glenn agreed. "Whatever it is that has you two acting like a couple of jackasses, you need to work it out by then. Although," he continued, lowering his voice for only Maggie's ears, "I haven't the slightest idea what we're going to do for an encore, in case this doesn't work." In the meantime, he would need to think of an exit strategy, because one way or the other he expected to be running, with a seriously pissed-off redneck hot on his heels.

* * *

They spent a good part of the first hour ignoring each other. Carol found a copy of National Geographic she hadn't gotten to yet, and tried to look convincingly like she was actually reading it. Daryl hitched himself up on a low bookcase and stared at the far wall.

After a while Carol threw the magazine across the room. The sudden flapping noise after the silence made both of them jump.

She sighed. "What do you want from me, Daryl?"

He squinted at her a little and waited for her to go on. He wasn't big on wide-open questions.

"Tell me what this is about, so I can try to understand."

Even in the low light she could see how his shoulders tightened. His voice, when it finally came, sounded like he was speaking from the bottom of a well. "I scared you the other day, didn't I? You were out there enjoying the morning, too, and I ruined it for you." She wanted to hush him, explain her giddy, weird feelings, but she knew if she spoke he'd just clam up again. Besides, she wasn't even sure she knew how to explain. Best just to let him go on until this unexpected flood of words ran down.

"I was just feelin' really _good_, for a change, like, _alive_, and the sun was comin' up, and then I knew you were right _there._ Like I was wired right into you. Honest, I was just playin' around, at first. But then… I wasn't. I just wanted… you. And you didn't... seem to..."

She got it. For once in his life he had reached out without a second thought, and instead of responding, she had frozen, like a rabbit before a predator. And he thought she didn't feel what he did. Given about three seconds, his finely-honed instincts had read - _mis_-read - the situation, and he'd shut himself down rather than feel her rejection.

"Oh, you dear, infuriating, idiot man," she murmured. She moved across the room and planted herself in front of him, arms crossed, ready to do battle with him if that's what it took. "Here is how it's going to be, Daryl Dixon. You are going to stop trying to read my mind, and I am going to stop trying to read yours. We are going to _talk_ to each other, just like grown-up people are supposed to." He _hrmphed_, like he wasn't sure he agreed with all this candor she had planned, but she was too far gone now to stop. She knew what she wanted, and she knew how it had to be if it was going to work. "You are going to stop trying to save everyone except yourself, and I am going to stop trying to do everything just because I think no one else is going to do it. And unless the place is burning down around us, we are going to make time for each other, no matter what else is going on, because that's what people do when they love each other. Is that OK with you?"

His shining eyes took her breath away, and she slipped into his arms, like coming home.

* * *

(Neither of them noticed when Glenn and Maggie came back to take the chain off and let them know supper was ready. Having plotted out what he thought was the perfect escape route, Glenn was a little disappointed.)


End file.
